


Rest

by buttsbeyondbutts



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Characters, Asexual Clint Barton, Asexual Natasha Romanov, Asexuality, Battle of New York (Marvel), Budapest, Cuddling, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsbeyondbutts/pseuds/buttsbeyondbutts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha looks after Clint after The Battle of New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest

After the Chitauri were gone, the shawarma consumed and Loki appropriately locked away, Natasha put her hand on Clint’s shoulder. He flinched under the touch but did not pull away. “You’re not going home alone tonight,” she said. It was not a question.

Clint nodded and didn’t say anything as they drove home. Natasha’s well-worn Miley Cyrus cd played in the background as Clint stared at the destruction of New York, the destruction he helped to create. Natasha parked on the side walk, knowing everyone would assume it was part of the chaos. She led Clint up to his apartment, all ten stories miraculously spared, without a single word. Clint barely even questioned why she had a key.

“Your water’s still working,” she said, testing the sinks. “Piss poor invasion when you think about it. Go take a shower.”

“I’m fine,” he said, in a gruff voice. His legs shake underneath him.

“You’re covered in blood and dirt,” she countered. “It’s in your hair. Take a shower, Barton.”

He nodded but didn’t move. In the end, Natasha frog marched him into the tiny bathroom. “You need help?” She asked, leaning up against the blue tile.

He shook his head. “If I don’t hear running water in the next minute, I’m coming in and holding you under,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Clint turns on the water but doesn’t step it. Everything is too blue. He closed his eyes against it but inside all he can see are screaming faces, blood on his hands and that awful swirling blue of the Tesseract, of Loki’s eyes. His eyes shot open again and Clint forced himself to breath. He forced himself to strip out of his ruined uniform and step into the shower, colder than he preferred, and run the soap over his body. If he thought about anything else besides rubbing shampoo into his hair and strubbing away at the stubborn stains of blood and dirt, he would need Natasha’s help. He would need more help than Natasha was willing to give him.

“Barton?” She called after a few minutes.

“I’m fine,” he barked back.

“Don’t use all the hot water,” she warned him.

Clint rinsed. He toweled off and picked his pajamas up out of the laundry, an old circus t-shirt and sweat pants stained with salsa. He stepped into the hallway.  Natasha leaned against the wall, with another set of towels in her arms. “You good?” she asked.

He nodded and she pushed past him, closing the door. Clint listened for a few moments to Natasha in the shower, humming something upbeat and poppy. Then he turned and found his way back to the bed room. He stumbled over piles of dirty clothes to the futon, freshly made up with new sheets. Natasha must have done it while he was showering. Clint let himself collapse onto it, face down, revealing in the scent of clean sheets. He needed to do laundry more often.

“You okay?” Natasha stood in the door way, wrapped in a towel.

“Yeah,” He mumbled, turning back into the warm linens, “Did that seriously just happen?”

“Yep,” she dropped the towel with a small thump and she walked to his closet, “We fought monsters that came out of the sky. Apparently that’s a thing now.”

She settled in next to Clint, dressed in another over sided t-shirt: a circus tent around her lithe frame. Clint let her maneuver him around. Fighting Natasha now would be like two new born kittens in a cage match. She turned him over on the side so he was facing her and pulled him in close, gently caressing his face. “You’re okay, huh?” She said, watching him carefully, “Everything you did, you did it because you had to. You don’t have to any more. You can rest.”

Clint nodded. “Okay, Nat,” he mumbled, pressing his face into the crook of her neck and breathing in the warm scent of her, mixed in with his own conditioner and laundry detergent. He was home again.

***

Budapest: Years Ago

The fighting was over.  SHIELD promised forgiveness if she agreed to work for them. She didn’t want forgiveness but she needed a safe place. Returning to Moscow would mean death, at least if she went as herself. SHIELD said they would take her to DC, to meet with a man named Fury. A new city, a new country, just might save her.

Even in the quiet of twilight, Natasha didn’t move from her spot against the wall. “You’re shaking,” Barton said, glancing down at her from his spot in the window. “Get some sleep.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Natasha said, without moving her gaze, “You know what I’ve done. You had orders to kill me. Why didn’t you follow them? Why put your neck on the line for me?”  
He slipped down from the window and sat next to her. “Everything you did,” he muttered, “You did because you had to. You don’t have to anymore. You can rest. ”

He reached across and put his arm around her shoulders and Black Widow immediately tensed. “Touch me and I’ll rip your damned dick off,” she said. Barton immediately withdrew his arm and moved about a foot and a half away from her.

“Sorry,” he said, “Not a big toucher, huh?”

“No,” she glared, crossing her arms. “Not if there’s nothing to be gained.”

“Fair enough,” he said, scooting further away. “For the record, I wasn’t going to try anything like that. I don’t see people sexually. I just figured you might want some human contact.”

Black Widow glared through narrow eyes. “I don’t.”

“Fair enough,” he nodded again, “But I’m not leaving you alone tonight. I’m keeping an eye on you so you might as well go to sleep.”

She didn’t. They spent the evening stareing at each other in silence, Natasha waiting for Clint to break his word. He didn’t and for the first time, Natasha could rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it. 
> 
> I think giving Black Widow terrible taste in music was a more controversial move than making her asexual.


End file.
